Of all the inventions of man I doubt whether any was more easily accomplished than that of a Heaven. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking. The world's greatest events are not produced, they happen.

He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.

To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfecting of our spirit. It usually means that thereafter we stand still.